Guild Wars 2

I’ve seen an ele keep up 25stacks pretty consistently in a dungeon. There’s 0 doubt the class has great utility, but we certainly are lacking a traditional DPS mage class. I guess it doesn’t exist or is a mesmer, much like the “healing” class being a Guardian at best.

Whew good thing you said PVE. For a minute I thought you were saying Ele was harder to play than a warrior all together. Try playing a warrior in WvW. AKA get kited by everyone and hope someone is bad enough to stand still and let you get close to them.

Roam smartly or roll with support as a war and you won’t have this happen.

Over the last two weeks, I’ve been trying the stereotypical “Mage” model to gain my own opinions, and I think it’s faithfully implemented. I have a staff dps build with Valkyrie armor, beserker jewels/weapons, and scholar runes. Arcane skills 7-9 or additional AOE or survival skills subbed in based on the encounter.

The build excels in two things. AOE dmg is stout. Also, the ability to quickly burst down an add at range right when they spawn seems unmatched compared to the other people I’ve been running with. I don’t think sustained dmg on a boss is greater than any other GC build (it’s probably less), and the build is squishy, with active skills required for any noticeable mitigation (it IS a ranged cloth dps build afterall).

However, in its entirety, it seems like a faithful adaption of the stereotypical Mage.

The day an Elementalist can do this is the day I’ll admit D/D is OP: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cv2ux0GpejM

StevesDad.8213:

Hey there guy, I do play a warrior. I will destroy lots of crap because I play fighting games at the top level and was in a very high level WoW pvp arena guild years ago. I have 0 doubt that I will be stomping most people in GW2 based on the terrible play I’ve seen broadcast on twitch and youtube.

Cool story, brah…

But on a less condescending note, what you find fun is subjective. I had a RL bud that loved playing Rdm because it was complex and felt like a chess game to him. Where a melee just had to know the timing of his weaponskills for skill chains, a Rdm could do all that plus magic burst and support a team.

You may not find elementalist fun but others can and do.

Leo G.4501:

Protection.
You have it. Warriors don’t.

True but in order to maintain high protection up time elementalist must take another dps hit to pick up traits that apply protection and equip boon duration gear.

If a warrior is having problems staying alive he still can still equip toughness/vit gear and spec into survival traits.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cv2ux0Gpej

Elementalist can’t because they are already using survival gear/traits.

I’d be fine with that if elementalist did amazing damage and provided a lot utility at the same time but that is not the case.On a boss fight the only thing we can provide is boons and off healing.Warriors can provide the same thing with banners/shouts,do more dps and have better survival.

Gaudrath.6725:

Top that with a fat HP buffer and tons of armor. Warriors have it because they’re meant to take the hits. Elementalists are meant to evade and negate damage. Complaining that we have less HP than warrior simply doesn’t make sense. It would be like warriors complaining they don’t have invulnerability skills.

I don’t think anyone is meant to take hits in this game.

Right now we’re forced into melee if we use a dagger offhand or main hand.

Elementalist should be given a bit more effective health in pve.I don’t think its very fair warriors can ride around with 20k health in berserker gear. truck 25k 100 blade hits and 3k auto attacks while providing support with banners and shout.

If we did damage like that guy in addition to all the stuff we have now I’d be 100% ok with us having such low health.

I went into Arah to see how bad the gap between war/ele damage is.

It took me 11 min to kill the Berserker Abomination

It took a warrior 4 and a half min.

I’m sure i can get it down to 10 min with better play but I doubt me or anyone else can do much better than that.If you can feel free to post a video to prove me wrong.

I’m also going to try different weapons sets when I have more time this week.

Leo G.4501:

Molch.2078:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Endure_Pain
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shield_Stance
They have…

The difference between Endure Pain and Mist Form/Obsidian Flesh is, Endure pain isn’t an invulnerability. It’s simply “Take 0 damage”. If a condition is attached to an attack (like bleed and poison) you will take damage. If an attack hits you in Mist Form, nothing happens.

Shield Stance is a good Invulnerability skill but come on, it’s a Shield. If it didn’t do something like that, I doubt it’d be worth taking at all. That’s why Warriors use shields, because they can get 3sec of invulnerability out of it and can’t get that anywhere else. PS: also while using it, you can only move around. You can’t dodge roll, you can’t heal, you can’t attack. All you can do is use stances or shouts (instant cast). At least on Mist form, you can rez someone.

mist form a 75 sec CD….that lasts 3 seconds…
You can ress someone in 3 seconds? nice…..
It also won t break stun nor will cancel conditions, and also get hit from traps.

Focus has 2 Blast finishers; one in water and one in earth. With scepter, that’s 4 blast finishers. With might on attunement swap to fire + boon duration, you can get 13 stacks per fire wall. 2 Fire walls with Might of 30+ seconds is over 25 stacks. You just have to juggle fire attunement’s fire wall in your rotation to keep it up. You don’t have to constantly be stacking might, just get the initial quick stacks up and it’s easy to maintain.

With dagger off-hand, you just have to try and use ring of fire as often as you can and it works its magic in a similar way.

Cooldowns…

Your opinion is extremely biased and try to promote non existent things while denying drawbacks that makes our class bad.

Just fyi a glass cannon war has more armor and more life than a balanced or tanky ele.
So if you say it requires skill for a war to survive, figure how much is needed for any ele.

You can show me how good you are with D/D in fotm 20+ i’ll use one too…
There is a reason if i never find any aside me…..(not that i m that good but i use D/D since forever…).

P.S. giving might to party is not as you think…
You sacrifice your damage output, locking yourself out of skills with long cd, but also is not everyone will take all 25stacks…..

Players needs to spread out and most stacks has a small aoe, you will give 10 at best at half party…in REAL game.

P.S: btw even debating War VS ele in PVE is absurd….we shouldn t even discuss that due to the clear HUGE difference there is between the 2.

The best of all VS a subpar class

Smooth Marc.8743:

Gaudrath.6725:

Top that with a fat HP buffer and tons of armor. Warriors have it because they’re meant to take the hits. Elementalists are meant to evade and negate damage. Complaining that we have less HP than warrior simply doesn’t make sense. It would be like warriors complaining they don’t have invulnerability skills.

I don’t think anyone is meant to take hits in this game.

Right now we’re forced into melee if we use a dagger offhand or main hand.

Elementalist should be given a bit more effective health in pve.I don’t think its very fair warriors can ride around with 20k health in berserker gear. truck 25k 100 blade hits and 3k auto attacks while providing support with banners and shout.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKy67S6uvNU

For some perspective: The warrior in your linked video doing big 100 blades damage didn’t have 20k health, and he sure as heck didn’t have healing shouts nor could his banners give regen. Banner buffs are negligible except perhaps Banner of tactics and/or Banner of Discipline. Shouts are good offensive support but provide very little defensively unless traited.

To put it simply, to get that team support you have to give up those big juicy 100 blades numbers.

If we did damage like that guy in addition to all the stuff we have now I’d be 100% ok with us having such low health.

So you want 20k damage attacks plus all the support and utility that comes with elementalist? You want it all, basically. I’m not sure if you’re even taking yourself seriously…

I went into Arah to see how bad the gap between war/ele damage is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wfX4_cY-O8

The video is not fully uploaded yet but it will be soon

It took me 11 min to kill the Berserker Abomination

It took a warrior 4 and a half min.

I’m sure i can get it down to 10 min with better play but I doubt me or anyone else can do much better than that.If you can feel free to post a video to prove me wrong.

But…in his fight, he was using offensive utilities (frenzy, FGJ and banner of discipline) and an offensive weapon and you were using defensive utilities (I think that glyph of elemental power for extra burning? mist form and arcane shield) and a defensive weapon.

LordByron.8369:

mist form a 75 sec CD….that lasts 3 seconds…
You can ress someone in 3 seconds? nice…..
It also won t break stun nor will cancel conditions, and also get hit from traps.

That’s not the point? >_>

You can’t rez someone while using shield stance nor can you use shield stance while you’re rezzing (and not interrupt the process). You can do this with mist form…or arcane shield…or obsidian flesh.

If it came to it, you could have mist form + obsidian flesh + arcane shield + using magnetic wave to deflect projectiles and maybe even swirling winds before you start to give you some extra time…so at least 10sec to rez someone who’s down.

For perspective, Endure Pain only lasts 3 seconds and you can still be CC’ed.

Cooldowns…

Your opinion is extremely biased and try to promote non existent things while denying drawbacks that makes our class bad.

Just fyi a glass cannon war has more armor and more life than a balanced or tanky ele.
So if you say it requires skill for a war to survive, figure how much is needed for any ele.

Perspective!

Denying the drawbacks? You’re doing the exact same thing with warrior. It has drawbacks too especially when building it to do those big numbers you’re craving for elementalist. It is a real deal that Warrior doesn’t have good condition removal unless they trait for it. An elementalist simply has to use Ether Renewal. There are other drawbacks too, but it seems you’re simply more willing to live with them or overcome them. Just don’t forget, at the same time, you’re simply unwilling to accept the ones that elementalists have.

Not everyone else is as unwilling as you.

P.S: btw even debating War VS ele in PVE is absurd….we shouldn t even discuss that due to the clear HUGE difference there is between the 2.

The best of all VS a subpar class

I would say so.

To sum up your complaint: You can’t do as much damage or take as many hits as a melee specialized class. Forget all the utility the class has, if an elementalist can’t out do a specialized class while having better support and utility, it’s trash. Why? Because you’re using daggers and that should mean something :P

Leo G.4501:

But…in his fight, he was using offensive utilities (frenzy, FGJ and banner of discipline) and an offensive weapon and you were using defensive utilities (I think that glyph of elemental power for extra burning? mist form and arcane shield) and a defensive weapon.

The point I’m trying to make is the damage difference between our elementalist and warrior damage is absurd.

I just finished staff with 3 offensive utility skills. It performed alot better than scepter focus.It took me about 8 min to kill the boss.I forgot to use consumables.With consumables and less screw ups I may be able to get staff down to 7 min.

Leo G.4501:

LordByron.8369:

mist form a 75 sec CD….that lasts 3 seconds…
You can ress someone in 3 seconds? nice…..
It also won t break stun nor will cancel conditions, and also get hit from traps.

That’s not the point? >_>

You can’t rez someone while using shield stance nor can you use shield stance while you’re rezzing (and not interrupt the process). You can do this with mist form…or arcane shield…or obsidian flesh.

really ….. is ressing downed in PvE an issue or are you climbing mirrors?
Your raw HP/armor does the same of our 75CD skills without even pressing a button.

If it came to it, you could have mist form + obsidian flesh + arcane shield + using magnetic wave to deflect projectiles and maybe even swirling winds before you start to give you some extra time…so at least 10sec to rez someone who’s down.

yes and then sit in the room for the rest of the fight……
But now ressing a downed is what makes a class OP…..

Perspective!

Denying the drawbacks? You’re doing the exact same thing with warrior. It has drawbacks too especially when building it to do those big numbers you’re craving for elementalist.

ALL current posts on gw2lfg specifying class requirement…..

LF3M P1 runs. warrior/guard/mesmer

LF1M DPS warrior for kitten FARM.

[LF 1 guardian] only !

HIGHLY EXPERIENCED MESMER LFG SPEED RUN COF1 STRICTLY NO NOOBS ALL DPS WARRIORS/GUARDIANS Must be able to do it at least 3 times.

LF1M cof exp speed farm! need 1 warrior (high dps only) If we don’t have enough dps a new grp will be formed

Should i go on?

i think we are losing time…..

Excuse that people are bad and donesn t understand is just not true since even from release, extremely hard dungeons were first done by 100% WAR/GUARDIAN groups.

So considering first to beat hard part cannot be considered BAD players the point is quite clear.

P.S. also happens in fotm Group then when there are not at least 2-3 heavy, Group disbands.

P.P.S. D/D ele is a melee class

LordByron.8369:

really ….. is ressing downed in PvE an issue or are you climbing mirrors?
Your raw HP/armor does the same of our 75CD skills without even pressing a button.

You’ve completely dodged the point of even mentioning those cooldowns.

If raw HP/armor does the same thing as those cooldowns is irrelevant because Elementalist doesn’t have that much armor/HP and Warriors don’t have any defensive utilities even close to an invulnerability.

ALL current posts on gw2lfg specifying class requirement…..

LF3M P1 runs. warrior/guard/mesmer

LF1M DPS warrior for kitten FARM.

[LF 1 guardian] only !

HIGHLY EXPERIENCED MESMER LFG SPEED RUN COF1 STRICTLY NO NOOBS ALL DPS WARRIORS/GUARDIANS Must be able to do it at least 3 times.

LF1M cof exp speed farm! need 1 warrior (high dps only) If we don’t have enough dps a new grp will be formed
Should i go on?

Go ahead.

For every 1 posting like that, you’ve got x10 more that simply want to run it period. Why focus on the kittenhats?

I know why. Because you don’t actually have an argument and need something to grasp onto so you don’t look a fool.

Anyway, I believe I’m done. There doesn’t seem a point to this although kudos to Smooth Marc on the soloing videos. Nicely done. I still say Elementalist is a hybrid support/damage class and you won’t get the raw damage of a damage focused class, same as Guardian or Necromancer. I think some changes and additions can be made for the profession but not to make it more competitive with Warrior at things Warriors do (taking hits and hitting things). To expect to do that as an Elementalist is rather absurd.

i repeat find me any post asking for an elementalist….or a necro or an engineer…..or a ranger.

That also pictures a small part of community…

Warriors are overplayed but 90% groups that lacks at least 2 heavy for a difficult dungeon, will just require some.
That is a Group will probbaly have 2 heavy anyway, but iat third slot if they don t they just require one..

Any fotm player can confirm…

You are denying the evidence….

If anyone is still interested here is a video of me doing Berserker abomination as dagger/dagger.

It took me about 8 min which was about the same time staff took.I had to use updraft to dodge because I kept running out of endurance, and could only use burning speed safely at certain times.I also could used arcane wave to trigger more blast finishers.

I am honestly disappointed with dagger/dagger dps I expected to go in there and kill the boss in 6 minutes.

I’m not going to bother doing scepter/dagger I tested it for a bit and I’m sure it would have resulted in a 9-10 min kill.You really need to use earth/air skills when your fire skills go on cool down as scepter/dagger. I attempted to attunment dance but half the time I’d have to dodge out of churning earth.Using ride the lighting a filler skill was also a huge problem.

Despite scepter/dagger being worse on a punching bag boss I still think it can put out as much damage as the other weapon because in a group setting you don’t have to deal with the boss following you around 100% of the time so you can safely use earth and air to do damage.

@ LeoG

You probably won’t ever read this but I agree eles/guardians/necros should not be able to do as much damage as a warrior just because we have easy access to support and control skills.I don’t think it’s ok for warriors to be doing twice our damage no amount of support is going to make up for that.

I still think elementalist need their hp bumped up in PVE.Half of our weapon sets force us into melee range so we’re not able to always sit in the back and spam damage.

Gonna have to disagree with you here I have a warrior and ele also. Warrior does great damage and has decent survival…. but my ele is on par if not more versatile then my warrior and puts out amazing damage.

I run scepter dagger. And my ele I feel is a bit more group oriented and helps with buffs/healing/cond removal a bit better then my warrior. On top of top tier damage.

I agree that eles are more versatile and but we can’t compete with warriors in damage at all.

If you feel like you can compete with warrior damage then make a video if you killing the berserker abomination in 5 min.

LordByron.8369:

i repeat find me any post asking for an elementalist….or a necro or an engineer…..or a ranger.

That also pictures a small part of community…

Warriors are overplayed but 90% groups that lacks at least 2 heavy for a difficult dungeon, will just require some.
That is a Group will probbaly have 2 heavy anyway, but iat third slot if they don t they just require one..

Any fotm player can confirm…

You are denying the evidence….

Preference does not =/= fact. I run many groups that generally have 1 or 2 ele’s and guard/war.

Guess what we clear at a good pace just like when I am on my warrior.

You don’t have evidence what you have is certain people in the community with their minds set on a certain way you should play and make requirements. That sir is not fact.

Yes, I’m reading. Good work on the vid.

You’re probably right about the scepter/dagger being less damage but I suppose it’d depend on spec. Scepter seems to be a hybrid range/support weapon anyway, better at applying blast finishers due to the low cooldown of Drake’s tooth, but it needs crit to shine and the auto attack is lack luster. Air is pretty good though if you consider 1 and 2 together as the ‘auto attack’

That said, perhaps instead of Arcane wave, Arcane power on a scepter? I think it’s still bugged though…

You could probably play around with the build some more to cut it down to a faster time. Even the guy who made that arah solo video said it wasn’t in 1 session but multiple attempts spliced together so it could be he had lots of practice and tried various set ups to make it smoother.

Also, I found that with Glyph of Storms, air attunement tends to do more damage to larger foes due to its area being smaller. It’ll hit the target more often because of that and it also does it quicker. I haven’t done any sort of test to back this up though, just observation and namely seeing the damage per hit is around the same (except water which looks worse to me). But then I may have a bias build. I always aim for 30 in air then whatever else I feel like playing (never tried more than 10 in earth though…)

I think I’ll take another look at that staff video. If they can get similar DPS vs a bag of HP, then perception about dagger builds may be skewed by popularity rather than effectiveness. I never felt weak on my staff but I’m not very good with it either, so maybe it has better potential in PvE than I realized.

Yeah I’ve been considering using arcane power and elemental surge when I play scepter/dagger.They fixed the bug so you can land a dragon’s tooth,phoenix,ring of fire and fire grab and have all of it crit.In the video I had 68% crit so using arcane wave seemed like a better option.

When I get a chance I’ll try out persisting flames when I play staff instead of pyromancer’s pussisance.Persisting flames gives lava font an extra tick of damage.That plus staying above 90% the entire time(for vital striking),using food, and scholar runes.If I do all that I’m sure I can get my staff kill time to sub 7 minutes.

I also noticed something else in Wethospu’s video…

The NPC was alive and shooting the abomination too. Not sure how much damage that little Asura does but you never know and every little bit helps. And it’d probably be alot better than the fire elemental who might get 1 attack off before being taken down.

LordByron.8369:

ALL current posts on gw2lfg specifying class requirement…..

LF3M P1 runs. warrior/guard/mesmer

LF1M DPS warrior for kitten FARM.

[LF 1 guardian] only !

HIGHLY EXPERIENCED MESMER LFG SPEED RUN COF1 STRICTLY NO NOOBS ALL DPS WARRIORS/GUARDIANS Must be able to do it at least 3 times.

LF1M cof exp speed farm! need 1 warrior (high dps only) If we don’t have enough dps a new grp will be formed
Should i go on?

Maybe one shouldn’t run with pugs.. Find a good guild or a perma group to run dungeons (fractals) with on regular basis. No one likes pugs anyway (no matter if they are ele, mesmer, theif or warrior). Maybe that’s what you get if you play with randoms, but in my guild a guild member (even if it’s an ele) is prefered anytime over a pug warrior. Better safe than sorry, since we always use TeamSpeak while doing dungeons/fractals. I just can’t care any less for what random pugs are demanding. And even so, it’s hardly a problem to find a pug group if you decide to. CoF is one of the easiest and most popular dungeons. Others (HOTW, SE) are so rarely done that people will take anyone. Fractals past 20+.. No one takes eles huh? Well maybe in the pug world that is so, but what would I know, I just do it with my guild.

For the record, I didn’t say what was in that quote :P

Leo G.4501:

For the record, I didn’t say what was in that quote :P

I know, I noticed it, but unfortunately you saw it before I edited my post xD

Edit: On a second note. One can argue that ele is underpowered to warrior and that warrior is so much better to play compared to the effort/result you get from ele. You can also argue that ele needs a boost in PvE. However it doesn’t change the fact that some people find it much more fun to play Ele than warrior. I for one wouldn’t swap my Ele for warrior. My main was a mesmer and I also have a 80 engineer. Although mesmer burst shatter build can be fun to play, I find ele d/d so much more satisfying. Just cause I do less damage, doesn’t make the gameplay any worse for me. Although a boost to eles is always welcomed wether they need it or not, in the end it should come down to what YOU find to be most fun to play. Also I’m in general not fond of playing glasscanons.

Also one thing to realize is that your “melee” skills seem to be 300 range.

I think Warrior damage is bit too high in PvE (6.5 min lupi kill for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ2KTFw3CaI , I rarely do it this fast in pugs..) but honestly I would like to see a proper comparison. I have done my best to find optimal DPS-spec. I’m quite tired of pvt-gear users complaining about my damage.

Wethospu.6437:

I’m quite tired of pvt-gear users complaining about my damage.

Care to elaborate? I find that statement rather interesting.

Wethospu.6437:

Also one thing to realize is that your “melee” skills seem to be 300 range.

I think Warrior damage is bit too high in PvE (6.5 min lupi kill for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ2KTFw3CaI , I rarely do it this fast in pugs..) but honestly I would like to see a proper comparison. I have done my best to find optimal DPS-spec. I’m quite tired of pvt-gear users complaining about my damage.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3A3Op-Hj3dOUkJRU0xvcng5ZWc/edit

DL that.

Its a damage calculator for Eles/Rangers/Thiefs/Warriors with ANY PvE gear Mix.

Warrior GS damage is fine, HB damage is actually very fine. What makes GS OP in PvE is the CD, increase the CD and GS would be balanced.

Wethospu.6437:

Also one thing to realize is that your “melee” skills seem to be 300 range.

I think Warrior damage is bit too high in PvE (6.5 min lupi kill for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ2KTFw3CaI , I rarely do it this fast in pugs..) but honestly I would like to see a proper comparison. I have done my best to find optimal DPS-spec. I’m quite tired of pvt-gear users complaining about my damage.

Sorry if my posts came off as me complaining about your damage.My intent was to show the difference between full berserker elementalist damage and a full berserker warrior damage.

The only thing I ever complained about is that a warrior in full berserker gear has more effective health than an elementalist wearing 7-8 pieces of PVT gear.

Sadly we can’t do proper comparison because we don’t have dps meters.

just to say…
I use P/T/prec with some berserker piece also…

Only backpack is PTV

what makes ele bad as Damage dealer are cooldowns/attunement cooldown
But most of all Attacks slow as hell.

Thoise Attacks not only reduce hugely attack ratio and DPS but also are so slow that unless you have someone facetanking the opponent you will miss at least half damage of each attack, often you will completely miss.

And you have to predict what happens also to cast aoe when opponent will be later.

That in PvE <=== with staff

With D/D you compensate stacking might with long and risky combos.
But unless you feel a 4 sec channeled skill by a light class with low HP and short range, its not the problem.

Warriors are the god tier of PvE there is no contest, I’m not joking about this, when mobs are willing to take 100% damage of whatever skill you use, the warrior is truly unrivaled in terms of DPS.

Go to PvP however the D/D ele topples everything.

Berserk geared glass cannon warrior hits 35k at level 80 with food, no matter how hard you try on a ele, you can’t beat that damage from the 100b on the warrior. Their damage is really unrivaled in PvE no matter how you look at it, include the whirlwind damge and its comparing a lake to an ocean.

MarzAttakz.9608:

Wethospu.6437:

I’m quite tired of pvt-gear users complaining about my damage.

Care to elaborate? I find that statement rather interesting.

I know how well average person plays this game (not well). When I see people complaining about my damage there is no guarantee for me that person knows what he is talking about. Especially when some comparisons go like “I never see that big numbers, oh and I also use pvt-gear (or whatever non-berserker) because…” or stuff like “my ranged ability does less damage than your melee ability”.

I didn’t really aim this at anyone particularly, just general rant about player-base. :P

Just to say:

Ele staff:

Long range
long CD
attunement CD
2 attunements with almost no damage
Long channeling
SLOW Attacks that are often dodged in part even by mobs halving dps
almost any combo finishers

Did you ever happened to face some champion without a tank in the party?

Well tell me how many Attacks you can land while somone kites the champion

D/D ele has other issues, but mostly that survivability in pve drop a lot due to his range and has no dmg to compensate for that.

I play ele since release with no alts until few weeks ago i know the class really well….or at least i know sttaff D/D very well in any build because when the class was considered bad i had to try many…..

Note also that objection you make about range

A melee class with high survivability expecially in pve shouldn t do that uch more than a ranged class that die to a breethe…

High armor and vit are already there to compensate if you give also DPS (<== note the acronym) the gap becomes too big

On the opposite could be made for D/D ele that has the worst downside in a game and doesn t get enough reward for that in PVE while in PvP people just ignores the skill and the risk a good D/D has

LordByron.8369:

Note also that objection you make about range

A melee class with high survivability expecially in pve shouldn t do that uch more than a ranged class that die to a breethe…

High armor and vit are already there to compensate if you give also DPS (<== note the acronym) the gap becomes too big

On the opposite could be made for D/D ele that has the worst downside in a game and doesn t get enough reward for that in PVE while in PvP people just ignores the skill and the risk a good D/D has

One thing about the comparison with regards to to the their effectiveness that you cannot simply strike against:

“2 attunements with almost no damage”

Those 2 attunements you say that do almost no damage. They tend to have utility or CC and it’s built into every weapon and you don’t have to take traits to get said utility/CC. By comparison, GS and rifle have minimal CC and utility and can only garner some with traits (leg specialist gives 1sec of immobilize from their cripples).

I’m sorry to say but, elementalist is ‘penalized’ for the extra utility it offers, at least in the eyes of those trying to compare it to a warrior. You may not like it but that’s how the class is built. To give the class comparable damage while keeping all the utility and support it can provide just undermines others easily whereas the opposite is only true with regards to damage (A War or Mesmer spected for huge DPS won’t have much team support while the elementalist can still simply swap to water or air with any setup).

Leo G.4501:

One thing about the comparison with regards to to the their effectiveness that you cannot simply strike against:

“2 attunements with almost no damage”

Those 2 attunements you say that do almost no damage. They tend to have utility or CC and it’s built into every weapon and you don’t have to take traits to get said utility/CC.

and this is why you use a warrior rather than an ele.
1st you need to use 30 arcane almost by default.

2nd you just discovered the most severe drawback of eles by design…..

Having our skills on a 3,75 or 4 X CD compared to yours PLUS some attunement CD means we cannot use our skills at will.

So if you NEED CC you have 2 of 4 attunement with appropriate skills (even subpar considering 1 second stun is laughable).

If you need damage you again have 2 out of 4 attunements (i’d say just 1).
That means HALF the reliability of a warrior.

Now add the fact that just 1-2 skills X attunement is efficient, then you start to understand…

Please try an ele rather than talking about it…
When all your skills are on cd and you have to switch to AIR its really SAD….
If you switch to water you have 1 <= unreliable skill slow as hell

Both autoattack are so bad….so you cannot even use them.

That is the difference with D/D
D/D has more versatile skills in every attunement.

Staff has just 1 attunement for damage with half another to use but cooldown X4
same for CC

the problem is you are talking about a class you proved more than once you don t understand….

Just try it then discuss…

They did it easily Just giving ele 2X skills
Half of them are bad (75% of autoattacks are so bad) but put CD X4….
That is why staff ele is HALF a warrior.

Wow, I never thought I would hear the argument that the Elementalist is actually weaker because it has MORE abilities and MORE versatility.

This game (and most MMOs in general tbh) aren’t about pure damage. Providing boons for your and your teammates, condition removal for you and your teammates, supplimental healing, and conditions on top of the damage you deal is usually much better than just damage.

A 100B Warrior provides:

- High Damage
- Boons (If Shout build, might and fury)
- Conditions (Vulnerability, Cripple)
- Combo Finisher Whirl

A Staff Ele provides:

- Damage (not high, but not low either)
- Combo Fields (Fire x1, Water x2, Chill x1, Lightning x1)
- Blast Finisher x1/Projectile Finisher x1 (utilized with those combo fields – if using lightning hammer, even more)
- Boons (Fury, might, regeneration, protection, swiftness – personal vigor if using Soothing Disruption)
- Heals (Geyser, Healing Rain, Water attunement swap, blast finisher in water field)
- Condition Removal (Healing Rain, Water attunement swap using Cleansing Water)
- Conditions (Burning, Bleed, Chill, Vulnerability)
- CC (Stun, Knockback, Cripple, Immobilize)

Honestly, in my opinion, it looks like the warrior is less than half a staff ele. An ele isn’t going to be absolutely decimating with damage like a 100b warrior can, but a warrior falls behind the ele in every other category imo.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shockwave
Immobilized: 2 s
Combo Finisher: Physical Projectile
Range.png Range: 1,200
CD:30

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bladetrail
Crippled: 4 s
Combo Finisher: Physical Projectile
Range: 900
CD 15

do this for every skill…..don t forget banners/shouts

LordByron.8369:

Please try an ele rather than talking about it…

Practice what you preach, sir.

All you’re doing is talking, throwing around speculative figures and jumping to conclusions. What you do not do is actually show any of your conclusions are true.

Come on, your evidence is gw2lfg.com postings. Do you understand how dumb that makes you look?

LordByron.8369:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shockwave
Immobilized: 2 s
Combo Finisher: Physical Projectile
Range.png Range: 1,200
CD:30

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bladetrail
Crippled: 4 s
Combo Finisher: Physical Projectile
Range: 900
CD 15

do this for every skill…..don t forget banners/shouts

I missed one Physical Projectile Combo Finisher. My bad… I also did include shouts.

Leo G.4501:

LordByron.8369:

Please try an ele rather than talking about it…

Practice what you preach, sir.

All you’re doing is talking, throwing around speculative figures and jumping to conclusions. What you do not do is actually show any of your conclusions are true.

Come on, your evidence is gw2lfg.com postings. Do you understand how dumb that makes you look?

you can find me playing my ele every day from 19 to 21 gmt+1.(then i switch to mesmer)….also more on sunday.
I will gladly join you with your so you can show me

So you want me to seek you out so you can show me how much elementalist sucks?

Why would I want to do that?

We should probably end this discussion it’s pointless continuing it

The bottom line is this

Elementalist could use a bit more hp

Elementalist bring a ton of utility to the table.

Elementalist are are good enough to do all the content in the game

Elementalist are probably on par or better than most classes in the game.

Great sword damage is insane I doubt any class is able to touch warrior dps.

Smooth Marc.8743:

We should probably end this discussion it’s pointless continuing it

The bottom line is this

Elementalist could use a bit more hp

Elementalist bring a ton of utility to the table.

Elementalist are are good enough to do all the content in the game

Elementalist are probably on par or better than most classes in the game.

Great sword damage is insane I doubt any class is able to touch warrior dps.

I can agree with that. As for Elementalist HP, I’d more likely suggest better scaling for their heals/regens if only because that plays to their strength of support and is consistent with what they do best.

Leo G.4501:

Smooth Marc.8743:

We should probably end this discussion it’s pointless continuing it

The bottom line is this

Elementalist could use a bit more hp

Elementalist bring a ton of utility to the table.

Elementalist are are good enough to do all the content in the game

Elementalist are probably on par or better than most classes in the game.

Great sword damage is insane I doubt any class is able to touch warrior dps.

I can agree with that. As for Elementalist HP, I’d more likely suggest better scaling for their heals/regens if only because that plays to their strength of support and is consistent with what they do best.

The more likely scenario would be to nerf our healing capabilities a bit and increase our base HP. This will allow the same survivability for a bunker ele while boosting the base survivability for all Eles, making more damage oriented gear setups much more viable. If you just increase the healing, it will make the bunker even stronger which isn’t needed.

Hmmm, I can see the logic.

Leo G.4501:

Those 2 attunements you say that do almost no damage. They tend to have utility or CC and it’s built into every weapon and you don’t have to take traits to get said utility/CC. By comparison, GS and rifle have minimal CC and utility and can only garner some with traits (leg specialist gives 1sec of immobilize from their cripples).

Why instead of “buffing elementalist damage skills” don’t we get damage BUILDS. If I’m an elementalist and i want to do damage, why can’t i just build full berserker/fire/air and be as effective as berserker warrior? I said it a couple times and I’ll say it again, right now if i wanted to solve a problem through damage, I wouldn’t switch my build, I would just switch my class.

Yup, there’s no better utility than raw damage anyways. The faster you can kill something, the lesser chance there is that you will die.

I have to admit that after a point I stopped reading all the answers (it is too early in the morning) but from what I’ve seen we have two categories of people. Those who enjoy the elementalist and think it’s great as it is, and those who think that playing everything else is way better.

Personally I am still leveling my ele (yes I’m new to the game) but so far I like the versatility it can bring. Sadly I get a bit disappointed as I wanted to avoid another support/healy profession again, but it seems that once I ding 80, I will not be able to enjoy the PvE aspect of the game as a kittened-fireball-throwing-cloth-wearing killer.

Speaking of that, I have been looking for the past day, for a video (preferrably, but anything will do) about a PvE focused damage-dealing elementalist and so far I have not been able to find anything else other than how to build an unkillable (opinions on this part may vary) D/D ele in PvP and WvW. I’d greatly appreciate it, if anyone of you can supply me with such a guide/vid.

That being said, I will keep playing the elementalist trying to do some damage in dungeons whether that is S/D, S, or D/D, and hope that maybe things will turn towards the better (and by that I mean deal kitten-tons of damage in dungeons without having to support anyone else).

The elementalist is fun to play, fun to support with and terribly annoying in PvP from what I’ve seen, but it is kinda frustrating to see that such a versatile profession cannot dish out the appropriate, for its name, pain to mobs that come asking for it.

Serp.3264:

Wow, I never thought I would hear the argument that the Elementalist is actually weaker because it has MORE abilities and MORE versatility.

This game (and most MMOs in general tbh) aren’t about pure damage. Providing boons for your and your teammates, condition removal for you and your teammates, supplimental healing, and conditions on top of the damage you deal is usually much better than just damage.

A 100B Warrior provides:

- High Damage
- Boons (If Shout build, might and fury)
- Conditions (Vulnerability, Cripple)
- Combo Finisher Whirl

A Staff Ele provides:

- Damage (not high, but not low either)
- Combo Fields (Fire x1, Water x2, Chill x1, Lightning x1)
- Blast Finisher x1/Projectile Finisher x1 (utilized with those combo fields – if using lightning hammer, even more)
- Boons (Fury, might, regeneration, protection, swiftness – personal vigor if using Soothing Disruption)
- Heals (Geyser, Healing Rain, Water attunement swap, blast finisher in water field)
- Condition Removal (Healing Rain, Water attunement swap using Cleansing Water)
- Conditions (Burning, Bleed, Chill, Vulnerability)
- CC (Stun, Knockback, Cripple, Immobilize)

Honestly, in my opinion, it looks like the warrior is less than half a staff ele. An ele isn’t going to be absolutely decimating with damage like a 100b warrior can, but a warrior falls behind the ele in every other category imo.

You are a bit wrong on the warrior aspect and in PvE a lot of the “pro” that the elementalist is negated or has a limited effectivement.

Warriors can provide AoE healing with shouts, AoE condition removal (abet not as good as the ele but its still there).

Even if the warrior falls behind in most non damaging categories in comparison to the Ele, truth is that those factors are better for PvP while being almost worthless in PvE.

It’s not about quantity of pros being compared but the quality, in which damage is unsurpassed.

NdranC.5107:

Leo G.4501:

Those 2 attunements you say that do almost no damage. They tend to have utility or CC and it’s built into every weapon and you don’t have to take traits to get said utility/CC. By comparison, GS and rifle have minimal CC and utility and can only garner some with traits (leg specialist gives 1sec of immobilize from their cripples).

Why instead of “buffing elementalist damage skills” don’t we get damage BUILDS. If I’m an elementalist and i want to do damage, why can’t i just build full berserker/fire/air and be as effective as berserker warrior? I said it a couple times and I’ll say it again, right now if i wanted to solve a problem through damage, I wouldn’t switch my build, I would just switch my class.

Because there is currently no function to lock yourself out of support attunements/skills. They’re there whether you decide to use them or not. The same is not the case for damage focused professions. You don’t just ‘get’ healing shouts that all remove conditions, you build for it that is always a spot in your build that could have gone to offense.

Funny that though, there were threads discussing ‘focused attunement builds’ for elementalist not long ago mainly with the prospect of making single attunements really strong while sacrificing effectiveness of other attunements. I’d still support the idea but it was looked down upon because the core concept (as told by the opposition) of elementalist is versatility.

So to make a point, your perspective seems invalid with that concept of elementalist retaining their versatility nor is it balanced because your ‘DPS build’ still sacrifices nothing for its congruent performance to warriors.

Kaoloi.7092:

That being said, I will keep playing the elementalist trying to do some damage in dungeons whether that is S/D, S, or D/D, and hope that maybe things will turn towards the better (and by that I mean deal kitten-tons of damage in dungeons without having to support anyone else).

That’s rather selfish and highly uninformed. Everyone knows, in games like this in team environments, being a force multiplier is far more effective than just being the forced multiplied. And there’s nothing wrong with sticking mostly to fire, but setting your whole team to do better damage does more damage than just twinking yourself out to hit for 2-5k more in damage.

LieutenantGoogle.7326:

Warriors can provide AoE healing with shouts, AoE condition removal (abet not as good as the ele but its still there).

And I reiterate, that is build specific. Not all warriors can heal with shouts and remove (consistently) conditions from the team. That requires runes, a warhorn, and several traits. The pros for elementalist listed (for the most part) is tied into the profession itself.

That’s the difference, people.

Now if you want to brainstorm about ideas like locking oneself out of attunements to make others more effective or discuss the usefulness of their core concept, I’m all ears.

The thing is, in PvE (dungeons) I believe many elementalists make a mistake of using D/D as their main weapon set.

Staff is infinitely better in a group PvE. Not because of raw damage, but because it buffs the damage output of the entire group, and that buff is allmost like having another player in there. That’s why staff is a force multiplier, you end up with the output greater than what five players focused on doing damage could do.

Secondary to that is the CC abilities. Kiting is made infinitely easier with mass chills, stuns and cripples. I frequently run rear when we skip content and just cripple/chill/stun trash mobs so they end up doing zero damage, especially if some team mates are a bit slower than the rest and would otherwise get focused down.

And then it is damage. While elementalists cannot provide the same amount of burst damage a 100B warrior can, burst damage is not important in PvE. Sustained damage is. Which is where all of our conditions and AoE effects come in.

And finaly, utility. We can provide an excellent extra tank in tight spots (Earth Elemental).
We can completely negate ranged damage of entire groups (Scepter Air #4) or both ranged and melee for 10 seconds (Glyph of Storms in Earth = Blind AoE field).
We have excellent staying power and can easily outlast even warriors. I frequently am the last man standing if I pay attention.
We can rez downed teammates under heavy fire while invulnerable.
We can provide excellent utility tools like Ice Bow and Fiery Greatsword for demolition (very useful in AC).

So no, burst damage is not the most important thing you can bring to the table in PvE. Or in PvP. There are so many ways to evade or negate burst damage in both scenarios (either through fat HP buffers PvE mobs and bosses have, or through direct evasion/negation in PvP as any warrior who tried to use 100B on an awake player can tell you). But utility, that is useful in any scenario.

Unless, of course, you focus on big numbers flying out of people. I think ANet made one mistake, and that is not including a system where proper support is fully recognized. They focused too much on presenting and rewarding the damage you do and not enough of doing the same for all the useful stuff you do for your team.